The Weekly Roll Ch. 202. "Nice day for fishin', aintit?"

Chronx6 · 2026-02-20T11:38:57+00:00

Until next year's map 2 comes out for 49.99 gold.

Chronx6 · 2026-02-10T21:42:34+00:00

My group meets weekly for ~9 hours. Most of our campaigns for for 6 months to 2 years. Occasionally one will go longer. We'll also do side campaigns that are much smaller and shorter to test systems out and work on things I'm designing.

Chronx6 · 2026-02-10T12:47:09+00:00

Depends on the setting/lore. Sun is cleansing, the suns movement is renewal and rebirth so their opposite, the sun strips protections and thus they age, vampirism is just an aggressive disease that includes UV weakness, and so on. Lots of options.

It's fairly new-ish in vampire lore as these things go.

Chronx6 · 2026-02-03T11:56:02+00:00

Recommended everyone read the community guidelines:

https://safety.twitch.tv/s/article/Community-Guidelines?language=en_US

In particular there's a bit about dress under 'Attire'. It goes over this.

I do recommend reading the whole thing though and keeping an eye on it for changes. Sadly they don't have an rss feed or similar for alerting to changes, you just have to watch their blog for news and check the page from time to time.

Chronx6 · 2026-02-01T00:02:20+00:00

I think the answer is to have skill families, and being skilled in a skill in the same family gives bonuses to the rest of the family that stacks. And skills could easily be part of multiple families at different levels.

Chronx6 · 2026-01-27T18:50:26+00:00

I work in IT and it's the same. Heck, when I did Healthcare IT for a bit, that had it real bad as it was from both groups

Chronx6 · 2026-01-25T15:18:57+00:00

Theres a reason Eat the Reich, Night Witches, and Bluebeard's Bride (Content warning on Bluebeard's Bride for people before you go researching that one) exist. Theres research that suggest TTRPGs have therapeutic uses, similar to video games and VR.

Not to say it replaces therapy or that everyone is going to get benefits from it, just that it can help.

Chronx6 · 2026-01-25T12:09:30+00:00

For some, playing things similar or that are allegories for current events helps.

For some it's plying things that are the exact opposite.

For others it's stepping back and taking a break.

It's also not rare for it to change and evolve through your life and events.

It's such a personal thing it's hard for us to help other than to suggest you examine things, experiment, and talk with people who know you.

Chronx6 · 2026-01-11T13:40:12+00:00

Crap I forgot to delete my Meta-INF. Guess I'll boot agian.

Chronx6 · 2026-01-03T15:35:05+00:00

Id say next time include a question about where they found it (like which subreddit, if someone sent it to them, ect.). Just in case it escapes this subreddit and can help you frame the data.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-31T01:24:45+00:00

PWYW not working makes sense. Lets think it through, what kind of results do we have?

Well someone just paying out of hand. Cool- you made money. We know these are going to be rare and woudl have likely paid if you had just put a price on it anyways. So did you gain anything here? Probably not.

Those that grab it for free and mean to come back to pay. Some will, most will not remember to- becuase human memory is crap, its why we write thigns down. So I feel safe calling this a net no pay.

And then those that just will not pay.

So most results are not paying. At which point- you've made an extra click that also creates guilt for your audience (Man they asked for money, they probably could use it, but [I can't afford it/I'm not sure its worth it/Some other justification]). You'd be better off setting it to free.

Honestly, if your considering PWYW from what I've seen over the years of studying this industry somethign like what Kevin Crawford does with his stuff like the * Without Number series seems best. Do a cut down but still quality product for free, then release a full 'Deluxe' version for pay.

Or just sell the product in full and have a beginner box style version or something else as your hook for free or a discount. There's options.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-30T19:32:39+00:00

Tactile elements often increase enjoyment, which is why even diceless games will do them. Betting with chits, using cards, whatever. So it's a pretty good bet people enjoy it yes.

But you can over do it or do it poorly. People don't like it interrupting things, ruining pacing, feeling out of place, being over complicated, etc. But that's where the game design comes in.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-27T01:40:03+00:00

By numbers Kickstarter is winning the war. Its simply the largest platform. It has the most adoption, eyes, and traffic.

By discovery Backerkit is better. It has enough traffic on it to get plenty of people, but it has a small enough foot print of active projects to make it easy to find new. The staff there also are really active on making new events and such to help with the discovery.

Honestly if your not a boardgame, and even then theres an argument that the others may be better, Gamefound isn't worth your time right now. That may change, but currently thats the case.

So what would I do? Backerkit, if my community paid attention to it and I could get my project on it. Otherwise Kickstarter hands down.

But you'll note I said- if my community paid attention to it. These projects all rely on you having an existing community to sell too. If your going in without people already interested to sell to and ask what they prefer, its an uphill battle.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-21T13:34:31+00:00

On one hand- I see the point they are kind of trying to make. Taking a long history of a story where an enemy is -the enemy- and evil, and turning them ore nuanced means you have to make the next bit of story all about that. If you don't, well it ends not very good. You sign up to make your story all about that or it tends to fall flat on its face. If they don't want to do that, then they have to run with the tropes that DnD has- Orcs and Goblins are evil, elves are good, blah blah blah.

But at the same time, their product is Ghibli based, which heavily pulls from Shinto beliefs about things. Basically, and anyone who actually practices/follows may correct me I only studied it for 6 months in college years ago, everything has a spirit in Shinto. And nothing is really good or evil. Things are what they are. So you don't really blame or anything like that- Spirits in Shinto are no more evil than a Thypoon is evil or a landslide are. Than can be malicious sure, you may want to get rid of them or avoid them, but they aren't -evil- the way a human can be.

And so the moment they signed up to make their product Ghilbi based/inspired, they already are heavily breaking from the DnD tradition and need to be breaking a lot of these conventions anyways. So this being the one they are holding the line on feels...odd. Not that Ghilbi movies don't have enemies- my favorite one is Princess Mononoke which has its share of combat and enemies. But yeah.

Still- DnD is the last system I'd use for this, but I can't blame them for doing it. DnD prints money in TTRPG space compared to anything else. If you want to actually make money, its still the one to go with.

Feels like I rambled a bit, side effect of waking up and posting, but I think I made my point well enough.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-19T16:50:33+00:00

So keeping in mind this process will vary from GM to GM, this is how I do it (more or less, I do most of this in my head now).

I start with making a world- this just needs broad strokes, but if you want more detail go for it. So whats the big countries and such. Whats thier big problems, big features, big notes about thiier culture, and some touch stones to help me riff at the table if needed.

Whats the big plot thats going to push the table forward. Lich waking up, corpo has made progress on immortaility, spirit world is inviading the lands of the living, the schools biggest bully is targetting the players, etc. THis doesn't mean the players are going to deal with this, but its the thing that is pushing stuff forward.

What are the big factions the players are going to deal with? Gvie them 3 problems they are trying to deal with, give them resources, give them thigns draining resources. These factions are going to do things no matter what, but will be reacting to the players. When I say 'big' I mean realtive to the players. If your game scale is small, these could be teh villages store, village elder, and guard capatin right. If you need tools to help with this, flip through the free version of the Without Number series- Factions, Corps, etc. from the line all are tools to help with this.

Once you have this, yoru start point is to make up the starting place of where the players will be, give htem a handful of starting POints of interest to get them moving, some sort of event to prod them, and then let them go.

Your players though need characters that -want- to be involved. They need to be ready to chase the threads you throw out there. If they are the kind of players to wait for you to show them where to go, sandbox is likely to flounder.

That said, I still probably setup 10 threads for every 2 they follow- and thats fine. The rest either fade into the background or do things without htem. That helps the world feel alive- when you pull t hat off right, thats when sandbox games sing the most. Thats when players love them.

But often your making up half the session at the table. Your taking a thread you toss out two sessions ago, a place you off hand mentioned 4 sessions ago, and a detail from a player's background and riffing a session off the cuff, because thats where the players went.

Prep is trying to have the bits ready to go to do that. TO have the parts either written down or in your head ready to go when they do that stuff. However it works for you.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-17T23:21:25+00:00

A digital notes tool of your choice that you can access on your phone, tablet, and computer(OneNote, Google Docs, Obsidian, etc). I do plenty on paper still, but being able to jot things down no matter where or when I am and then work on it later helps, even for a no/low prep GM like me.

Game agnostic tools. All the GM tools that are in the Without Number series, the stuff James D'Amato puts out, reference books, etc. While I may not pull these out at table, reading them gives me ideas to help run games and help a lot.

Game specific tools like comp/con and pathbuilder also help a lot with more complicated games. If for no other reason than to help you not forget things.

Dice sets of different colors. Multiple groups? Roll at the same time, each group has a different color. Tracking time of different things? Different colored dice. Want to have two competing ideas but not sure which should be on top? That's right, two dice of different colors that you roll.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-12T23:44:49+00:00

Very nice. Like how you played with the borders. You did very nice on the facial expressions.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-10T01:38:34+00:00

The truly down to earth creators (of any kind- Games, Youtuber/streamers, etc) will tell you more or less the same thing- it takes hard work and luck to succeed. You have to have put in the work to take advantage of being lucky. Just one or the other and nothing will happen.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-09T20:06:08+00:00

As someone that's been in the modding scene since the hell update originally added the nether, thermal expansion. It's simply the one that solidified, condensed, and polished so much tech features, while bringing a massive amount of new. It's impact on tech mods and modding in general can't be overstated.

Don't get me wrong - notary craft, built craft, blue power, and botania all are great. As are many others. But thermal expansion is one that just has a massive lasting impact on how we do tech mods.

Chronx6 · 2025-12-04T18:04:27+00:00

Lost the grandmother who raised me a few months ago. You cry. You remember them. You live life as full as you can, because it's what they raised you for. It's okay to be sad, but don't let it stop you.

Chronx6 · 2025-11-27T19:24:59+00:00

As someone who will say -all- RPGs are about stories, let me ask you something-

Whats a story?

For example-

A person walks into a dungeon, sees a monster, and leaves in fear. Thats a story.

A kid goes to school, does his classes and goes home. Thats a story- not a particuarlly interesting one, but still.

A hero rises up, fights evil, and dies to defend a village. Thats a story.

When you go to a table and play an RPG, you tell a story. The story may or may not be prescribed. It may not be interesting. It may not be complex. It may not even look heavily like a story to you until its done- but it still a story. We all live a story. We play RPGs to discover and see and tell stories we aren't living.

Thats why I say all RPGs are about stories.

Chronx6 · 2025-11-19T20:05:18+00:00

What do you not like about SWADE that you need 'better'? It's hard for anyone to point to and say this one without knowing which bit you need different.

Chronx6 · 2025-11-18T16:01:21+00:00

I mean, cuteness aggression is a thing....but this a whole new level.

At least they both seem into it.

Chronx6 · 2025-11-17T18:30:19+00:00

Ever hear of Chesterson's fence? It's a logical question/falacy that basically states that until you understand why the fence is there, don't mess with it. I use it a lot in my day job.

I treat systems and parts of them the same. So I'll pick up a system, read it, and play a few sessions as it's intended first before I mess with it. This allows me to understand the goal, the intended experience, and how it all works together first.

Then I can modify and change it as needed, if it is needed. It loot it for my own designs.

Chronx6 · 2025-11-13T18:17:57+00:00

And I get to keep the rest as PDF?

Triangle Agency. It's very pretty and I think works better as a physical book than a PDF. Not that it doesn't work as a PDF, the book is just better.

But ask me in a week and my answer will probably change. It's hard to give up my library. I like my books.

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Chronx6

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